11781/Pieces of Mind: Behind Enemy Lines

Pieces of Mind: Behind Enemy Lines
Date of Scene:	27 June 2022
Location:	Astral Plane
Synopsis:	Emma escorts a bunch of lost souls towards the Astral sanctuary... until something goes very wrong.
Cast of Characters:	Charles Xavier, Emma Frost

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Charles Xavier has posed:
In the Astral plane, Xavier has been maintaining a beautiful sanctuary for lost souls. Many of them were moved to Jonathan Sims' site after their initial treatments. The worst, and most damaged, first flow into Xavier's care sanctuary, where they are treated there - and once they remember who they are, they are moved, or some stay.

After the strange attack not too long ago, the sanctuary has had a rough time of it. It had nearly been assaulted my the combined mental energies of dark magic that squeezed souls together into some kind of bizarre mental battering ram.

Since that time, it became even more important to push to get ahead of the number of minds arriving: and that did mean that Charles was rapidly in decline with his own health and ability to extend outwards from this project.

It's consuming him.

But not to where he cannot send a request, gentle and positive, to Emma -- there is a new batch of damaged souls. Can she escort them inside the sanctuary, please?

A check will reveal that yes, there are eight torn, almost inhumanly destroyed entities in a confused, upset splatter that are having trouble orienting to where they need to go to be treated.

Emma Frost has posed:
The way they're shredded is terrifying. Barely keeping themselves together in whatever capacity they can. And whatever tore them up and spat them out.. Still so little progress on investigating things. All they can do is try and take care of the ones they've found and stabilize them.

And how hard Charles was pushing himself. Emma had fears for him as well. If he pressed too far.. So many other things could come tumbling down. A carefully arranged Jenga tower.. How many pieces could one carefully remove?

Emma goes to maneuver along upon the mental request, moving to sort through the damaged consciousnesses. Going to try and sooth things over. A light tweak there if she could, a light press here. Just attempting to smudge over some of the most obvious tears rending through them to at least make it a little less painful. For whatever was left of thier consciousness.

Emma is then guiding them along towards the haven, the sanctuary. The pathway changes under her guidance. Becoming a plains area, a valley of wheat. A yellow road leading. ~Come, we're off to see the Wizard~ is sent along; if only for her personal amusement and to see if she could get a reaction from Charles. A way for her to check on him as well mentally.

Charles Xavier has posed:
Some of these souls are a little bit rabid. They are barely an id left. They lunge at each other, at Emma a little bit, though they are, for the most part, powerless. They do go on the yellow road, as there's truly no other place to go. Emma is bait, at the very least - and an excellent guide at the best!

There isn't too much response from Charles now: but it isn't nothing. There's a smile in her head, and then he's gone, trusting her, maybe.

But there's something else.

There's an awareness, following behind the pack of souls. It is snippet, a form of a little torch, easy to overlook. But it is coming along.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost goes to keep them separated. Giving what remains of them some mental shots of euphoria. Attempting to put them over in a psychid daze, a haze of pleausre and disorientation. Enough to make them more acquiescent and going along.

Doping them up might not be the best thing to do, but it's the kindest as far as Emma is concerned. She's not asking Charles now what the long term plans are. Now is not the time.

Emma works as they go along, keeping them soothed and compliant, scanning ahead to look for other things. She's paranoid mentally. This is all a stopgap. A desperate one at that.

Charles Xavier has posed:
A few of these souls are... oddly resistant. Two in particular don't seem to want to be doped by anything, they want a war. But they do keep moving, and in the end, that is truly the goal.

The snippet stops whenever the group stops or hesitates, fades out almost entirely... and perhaps even is gone, now. And yes, they do stop now and then, for reasons that may feel random. But looking at one of them, that is doing a lot of this disoriented stopping, and attacking - it lacks even a memory of being in a body. And there's traces of deliberate attacks here - that this result was intended.

Exactly this shredded, inhuman mind - was intended.

Emma Frost has posed:
Now that.. That's something she had suspected. Suspected from a psychological level. Suspected from a psychic level. The power it would take to shred minds from bodies and dissassociate them was immense. To leave some form of consciousness intact, at least to Emma Frost's experience, took far more skill. Skill and power begot intention, and purpose.
    Someone had wanted these minds to suffer. For little more than she feared for the sheer joy of it. Another thing for her as she would analyse them to be marked as confirming her paranoia.
    As they move along and just one soul goes on so aggressively, Emma isolates it. This one.. This one she works more thoroughly at trying to smooth over. Seeing if there are more specific memories to collect. While they walk along.. Emma works within her psychic abilities to try and undo the damage. At least temporarily.
    Madness, shredded madness could be ameliorated with care adn skill. She didn't have teh time for psychic surgery and reconstruction or to repair things. But she tried to see if she could pull more -specific- details from this one. Her mind going as but a spider going on a web.
    Threads torn, ripped, webbing of memories and essence dangling down. Spinnerettes buzzing as she would dance along the strands, pulling them if she could together once more, refastening, trying to tether bonds of psyche. For alittle bit, if she was good. Nothing that would hold together for long.
    While walking along with the rest of the souls, handling this to the side.

Charles Xavier has posed:
There's something about that soul that feels suspiciously damaged. Why do all of this? Why break it that far? Yet Emma does help it, she does soothe that particularly horribly harmed one, while the others are far easier to escort.

When getting to the sanctuary, it's easy to usher them in. There isn't actually any real resistance.

Except for that little bit coming along behind. The Astral has a sense of emotion into the very fabric of the plane. And that little piece following behind got frustrated, got upset, as the others reach the sanctuary - enough to send up an odd plume of emotional reaction, in a glow of softened green essence.

Emma Frost has posed:
Now how interesting. How very interesting. Emma goes along now with the souls. Leading them towards the haven, attempting to work at soothing the damaged one and seeing if by a softening of it's consciuosness she might pull out more specific memories at what had happened at the moment it had been rended.. SEeing if this one seemed like it had been gone after -specifically-.. There might be some rhyme or reason to it.

Now there was a stalker with them as wlel. Interesting. Emma makes another incarnation of herself. This one camouflaged in the psychic plane, floating along after the thing sneaking after them. Emma adds to put a thickening mental shield between herself and the souls moving along, and a thicker one along the mind she was trying to.. Temporarily defragment.

Time to move on like she wasn't aware while getting into position..

Charles Xavier has posed:
The single entity following them has stopped. It seems like it is likely proximity to the haven, the sanctuary, but it could be something else. It just has stayed put, frustrated. It feels like someone sent a very small snippet into the astral to look at something, not full consciousness. Generally that means it's a wizard or mage.

The soul Emma is focused on does have some surface memories. It feels, KNOWS the experience of being devoured in a slow, wrenching, grinding mental death. It feels the mental teeth gripping into its very brain, the horror of it, and shares every second with Emma. She wants to see ... and she is getting to see.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma has seen worse. She may very well have done worse at this phase of her life. Emma drinks it all up with a sense of passivity. All the while recording it with the disinterest of a court stenographer taking taps of the keys. Reciting it for later analysis as the mind would shudder an dagonize to death. And Emma attempts to sort it. Trying to find specific images in the mental impulses of disintegration. She faces the horror that she can only imagine. That she might very well someday be made to suffer herself should her own penance for pride and crimes be called upon.

But still, Emma tries to drwa out from that consciousness whatever she could that might be of use, trying to soothe the pain being brought up. LIkely going to erase the memory of reliving the experience later.

Now that thing going to watch at the duo.. Emma attempts something trickier. Magic and psionics don't always mix well. Magic could do many of the same things in different ways. But the thing was only a snippet of a cosnciuosness, not a full mind or psychic entity..

That meant that it could be possibly tricked. Emma goes to add another layer. Of her taking the minds along towards the sanctuary.. An illusion that would have her walking along, taking the most trauamtized with her to the side as she would etner.

To the probe, Emma attempts to start to psionically backtrack it. If she could trying to get a sense of a 'feeler' along the path, trying to get what information she could on the one that was dispatching it. Psionics mixing with magic was dangerous.

but so was she.

Charles Xavier has posed:
It doesn't quite fail, but doesn't quite work as expected, either. While the watcher may not actually know what Emma is doing, it does stop.... and address the area around it. It's very quiet, though, just for Emma, perhaps.

<< I came to warn you. >>

The other souls are nearly safely inside the sanctuary.

Emma Frost has posed:
The otehr souls are going there. Guiding there. Being pressed along. Emma does her best to accelerate the process whiel moving to put another layer of shielding around the one hse had been trying to get more information from. Her priority now being getting them within the confines of the haven in case she had to add up the equivalent of a blast door.

<<Well, please do give your warning. I'm dying of anticipation.>> A light tease and a goad. If the thing was going to be aggressive it would take the time to taunt at her and threaten, giving her more time to get the souls inside and reayd a defense.

If friendly, it would be annoyed but given the circumstances..

Charles Xavier has posed:
<< You're letting him inside, >> is the answer. This warning isn't given in concern, or compassion, or any related emotion. The emotion around it is more that this stalker is relaying this out of irritation, or anger. This isn't an altruistic helper. But then, that aspect may be something that Emma may, in fact, be far more familiar with!

The souls, who were so lost before, are now going very dutifully into the haven.

The soul that Emma was talking to recoils just a little from another one in that group, once again. Fear of another one of the souls.

Emma Frost has posed:
And Emma goes to hold up the cluster of souls now. All of them. She goes to isolate htem beyond separate barriers and holds them back and pulls htem away. IN a perimeter and twirls them around. Pumping them each more with a sense of euphoria for those that she could to keep them dazed.

And she goes to now try and focus on the one that was -receoiling-. Cursing herself for getting sloppy and arrogant. <<Why thank you darling. Please do pass along more? I appreciate it>> She goes to try and keep a handle on the one the souls were reacting in fear of..

Now trying to probe it at the same time if she could keep it sealed away from the rest for a few moments.

Charles Xavier has posed:
The barriers seem to work... until they don't. Four of them go berserk, with a strength they shouldn't have. It makes a big mess.

But then, Charles is present, in Emma's awareness. Or perhaps he was there before, but it is as if he were distant... and he just took some kind of blow, some impact, and the connection tore, like meat from bone. Hard. The sanctuary takes the blow, as something happens to Charles.

Charles had tried to help, look at the injured ones Emma brought, and something fed back.

<< Disconnect! >> is all the mage gives before with a blip, it's gone, knowing when to get the hell out, though Emma is skilled enough to have a gist of where to reach out to find it again. But then, the Astral area around the sanctuary bubbles, corrodes, oddly. The recoiling soul has locked mental 'gaze' back onto Emma. A victim, yes. And it saw into deep, deep Shadow. But it can convey the shape of that Shadow, as a last gift.

Emma Frost has posed:
Something Shadow? Something Shadow? Emma's mind is cuahgt up by swallowing darkness as everything is blotted out in her consciuosness and all she can do is tkae in the black. Darkness, black, blot.. Shades of colors all over. Pain. Adrenaline. Anger. Disorientation. Rage. Jealousy. Loathing. At herself. All of these feelings have colors. The emotional spectrum. ALl of the colors combined make one color.

White.

Emma takes all of those things and uses them to blot out everything else. To collect herself in a spectrum as hard as diamond. <<Charles! Get your sheilds up now!>> Emma's going to brace things as hard as she can while trying to shudder and throw up supports as best she can while going to try and send an alert to whomever is nearest to Charles at the Mansion to check in on him.

Emma Frost is no Herakles, trying to hold up the psychic wave-front that is Atlas' burden. As it's disrupted, she tries her best to lock it up and support it. And she'll no doubt fail.

But desperately as a stopgap she might give them time to draw Charles' consciousness out of it before he collapses.

Charles Xavier has posed:
<< I'll protect everyone, this is my responsibility -- save the lost souls -- >> Charles answers. Perhaps it is that piece of him, which doesn't want anyone harmed and that he'll try to do this alone, that is the hardest part.

The sanctuary splinters; pieces that Emma built still intact, but the skeleton, the core of it, Charles is pulling it apart, letting the Shadow consume those parts, and pushing the souls out, trusting Emma and the other psychics with as many as possible... as the sanctuary darkens, infected by the intrusion.

With Charles holding it - or being held - inside.